From Emory English Degree to Tech Exec

Stacey is the Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer at ServiceMax and a go-to-market expert—having served as the first head of marketing at both ServiceMax and SuccessFactors when each was a small startup. At SuccessFactors, Stacey helped lead the team from $10m to over $150m in revenue, and was instrumental in the company’s IPO in 2007 and subsequent acquisition by SAP. At ServiceMax, Stacey joined the founding team at less than $1m in ARR and lead the marketing function through 6 years of triple-digit growth, departing just prior to the $1b acquisition by GE. Most recently Stacey was CEO of Zinc, a real-time communication app for field service workers, which was acquired by ServiceMax in 2019. In addition to graduating from Emory College in 1991 as an English major, Stacey was a four-time all-conference soccer player. She is also a fierce advocate for women and parents in the workplace, and has published numerous articles in Fast Company, Recode, Fortune, and Forbes, among others.

On Emory Innovators, Stacey described the ways she leverages her humanities degree in her roles. From her perspective, there are many translatable skills like critical thinking, identifying themes in the world around you, and telling clear, concise, and compelling stories to create consensus in business settings. She also described how, as a hiring manager, she is not looking at people's majors. Instead, she looks for the experiences that a candidate has had and what she hears from a candidate's references.

Stacey also encouraged young people to raise their hands and share their ideas in their professional lives. Managers want to know what is happening in multiple parts of an organization, and want to hear multiple vantage points. This kind of behavior also helps young people stand out as leaders. Stacey said the best way to prep for this kind of standing out is to do your research, have specific data, details, and examples for your point, and be confident about what you know. 

Stacey is a true asset to the Emory community and her reflections on her career were thoughtful and incredibly valuable to the audience. If you missed the event, you can check out the recording here. To hear more from Stacey, you can enjoy her writings at staceyepstein.com. To stay up-to-date with The Hatchery's upcoming Emory Innovators, subscribe to their newsletter.